Photo by Ben Sellon
Growing up in Lauderhill, Fla., in the '80s, Roberto Carlos Lange was just a kid when B-boying became ubiquitous in his largely Caribbean neighborhood. He played the eager audience as his older brother and his cousin popped and locked, busting out backspins and headspins and doing the worm to the booming sound of syncopated 808s. The kids in the neighborhood wore airbrushed jean jackets—his cousin did the airbrushing, in fact—and the names of local crews were spelled out in flock letters across the back. Later, Lange would see New York B-boy crews rocking the same type of iron-on in films like Style Wars, and when it came time to put together the cover art for his new single as Helado Negro, he asked his brother to design something using the same letters. White against black, refracting gothic affect through South Florida swagger, the words make for one of the year's most striking cover statements: "YOUNG, LATIN & PROUD."
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Between the calligraphic typeface and the defiant sentiment, the first thing that came to mind when I saw the sleeve was Los Crudos, the Chicago punk band who put Latino identity at the center of their music. But "Young, Latin and Proud" couldn't be further from Los Crudos' fast, furious racket. The song opens with a daybreak shimmer of guitar, and for a moment, the stereo field is nothing but a soft glow, formless and weightless. Then, with an intake of breath, Lange launches into song as though tossing a jar full of pennies into a feather pillow:
He has multi-tracked his voice, as he often does, into a wooly baritone and a soft, quavering falsetto; the effect feels like being embraced by a roomful of whispers. The lyrics scan as an anthem, but it would be hard to imagine a gentler one. When I ask Lange about this dichotomy, he agrees. "It felt like a lullaby, more than anything," he says, speaking over Skype from his apartment in Brooklyn. It's a warm summer morning there, and the steady chirping of birds is audible in the background, interrupted only by the occasional ambulance siren. "It felt like this thing that a mother or father would tell their son before he went to bed. It's this tuck-you-to-sleep type of thing where it's very comforting. That was the goal for me—it's less about trying to exclude yourself, and more about just being proud of who you are and all the things that come with that."
Latino identity has often played a role in Helado Negro's music; his first few records were sung entirely in Spanish and his last album, the bilingual Double Youth, grappled with the multiple layers of culture that constitute a person. But this is the first time Lange has ever articulated his ideas as a declarative statement. "I think the theme is something I've been thinking about for a very long time, since my first release," Lange says. "It's always been a part of me. But I've never been this explicit."
Structurally, it would be hard for the song to be much simpler—it's just two chords repeated over and over, over and over; they stay the same for verse and chorus alike. But the gauzy sonics and dubby effects suggest a world of nuance, and the lyrics, when you drill into them, are no less ambiguous. There's an undercurrent of doubt to lines like, "Knowing that you'll be you/ For the rest of your life"; but as the song proceeds, as it gathers strength, it takes on a cozy sort of confidence. "And you grow older knowing/ That you'll always be this one thing," he sings; "And the people/ Who'll be here waiting for you/ Always will be one with you."
When I ask about the song's multiple, and even contradictory, layers, Lange says, "I reinterpret what I do all the time. I think that's what this song is about for me: my culture and where I grew up, and how I grew up, and what it means for me—how many times can these things change for me?"
Lange's parents moved to the United States from Guayaquil, Ecuador, when they were teenagers—his mother to the Upper West Side, and his father to Long Island—and Lange and his family went back to visit family there most every summer and Christmas until he was 18. But he was an American kid through and through, right down to the trepidation he felt flying into Guayaquil's then-dilapidated airport. "It's pretty nice now, for sure," he says, "but back then, man, I was scared. I was so young, and it was such a shock." (These days, of course, Guayaquil boasts a brand new terminal, while New York's airports are mocked and feared for their crumbling infrastructure. So much for "first world" hubris!)
Still, as he grew older, Lange gradually realized that his fondness for what he terms "all things weird" stemmed from the experiences of growing up Latino. Or, more precisely, he says, "My fondness for all things weird is just something that was born in me. The contrast between cultures amplifies the weirdness." There was his father's friend who would roll up in his wheelchair with a TR-707, guitar, and microphone, serenading house parties with South American classics and contemporary hits; there was his mom's fondness for dancing to bachata and cumbia and salsa and merengue with Lange as her dance partner. But these things were hard to talk about with kids that hadn't grown up with a similar upbringing. "This life seemed so private to me," he says. "I didn't share it with many of the kids outside of my family's circle of friends or people within the culture. That was the weirdness I suppose, I felt like it was something within just the world I was in. I think at times I was embarrassed to share that with people who weren't a part of it."
He brings up a song by the Argentine singer/songwriter Facundo Cabral: "No Soy de Aquí, Ni Soy de Allá". It's a wanderer's lament, but also a celebration of rootlessness and independence and the simple joy of living: "I'm not from here, nor there/ I have neither age, nor future/ And being happy is the color of my identity."
"It's one of those songs that talks about being anonymous but also being present, and being a human," says Lange. "The lyric 'Y ser feliz es mi color de identidad' feels so plain, but it cuts straight to this sentiment. I identify myself as being human, first and foremost, but most people don't look at each other like that. My friend Jace Clayton said something I repeat: 'Ser plural es dificil.'"
In college, Lange began to realize how his family and his roots had influenced the ways he made music, as well as the kinds of communities that he sought out. His parents' record collection was a treasure trove of Latin American sounds, and he'd sit in their living room in front of his father's Marantz hi-fi system, sampling beats and making loops on his MPC. When he headed off to college in Savannah, Ga., he began flipping those samples along with samples of funk, soul, and R&B; at the same time, he studied experimental composers like Luc Ferrari and David Tudor. "But the thing I always looked for were the Latinos in the mix," he says. (Many of his early allies and collaborators—Miami labels like Beta Bodega, Counterflow, and Merck—skewed heavily Latino.) "Always looking for the person no one was ever talking about. I could make a long list. I think maybe that's one thing that's changed drastically: me being shy about all the beautiful nuances of my upbringing to now, not being timid at all about decorating it around the hallways of my mind—so people can dance and strut to the next door that I'm hoping to open."
"Young, Latin and Proud" is sung in English, but he slips into Spanish for the song's denouement ("Symmetry feels good, you know?" he says, laughing): "Abuela es young, Latin and proud/ Tus padres son young, Latin and proud/ Tu hermana es young, Latin and proud…" It's a family reunion of sorts, where the two languages fly back and forth across the dinner table interchangeably. "There was a moment where I was going to get pretty tongue in cheek with it, like, 'Tu perro es young Latin and proud,' you know? Just start naming inanimate objects? But then I thought that might be too much."
Still, that lightness of spirit is a big part of the song's charm, if only because it's so unusual to hear an anthem so understated. He returns to the idea of a lullaby. "It's not trying to make it this Public Enemy song, and more like someone picking you up in their arms and saying, 'This is what it's about—it's all good!'"
